Here We Come to Save the Day

That sound you hear is untold millions of mild-mannered citizens rushing into proverbial phone booths (good luck finding a phone booth) and emerging cloaked in their true identities as…

METS FANS!

Slower than the 7 local…

More gullible than a herd of puppies…

Able to to be sated by the coming of Opening Day…

Yes, we’re putting on our blue capes and our orange tights and we’re ready to take flight into another baseball season, even if the last one flew into us, even if the prognostications for this one have us barely getting off the ground, even if P.A. announcer Alex Anthony will be calling out, prior to 1:10 this afternoon, “On Cora! On Jacobs! On Matthews, Junior!”

So what if Omar Claus left holes in our stockings? So what if under the tree, instead of a new starting pitcher, we got the same old lumps of coal capable of producing scarily smoking ERAs? And so what if only half of our 0-0 record looks convincing right now?

Look at the bright side. Look at Santana Claus (and hope he can still shoulder the load). Watch him throw to the wise elf Barajas and try to hope Josh Johnson won’t be the Grinch who steals Opening Day. There are countervailing forces at work, according to ESPN’s Mark Simon: the Mets are generally merry when the season starts (31-9 since 1970; 17-2 the last 19 times the true Opener came to Queens), but Johnson has a tendency to ruin everything every time he gets in our way (7-0 vs. the Mets). The clash of titanic trends will yield a result that is, as of this morning, unknowable. The fun part — before it happens, anyway — getting to know it.

Something’s gotta give, and it will be us, the people who have been sagging and dragging for months on end. We’re out of our phone booths now and we are METS FANS! once again. We are putting 2009 behind us at least until the first Met falls down. We are filing away the non-trades and non-signings of the Hot Stove League. We now know that both the Ides of March as well as the aights of March (as in “aight, intrasquad workout highlights are on!”) are immaterial. It’s April 5, Opening Day, and Opening Day is a both a continuation of only that which is is good and a break from all that was bad. It’s all good for now. It’s all merry for now. It’s all happy for now.

Happy New Year, METS FANS! It’s good to be up and soaring with you once again.

8 comments to Here We Come to Save the Day

Hey Guys…someone gave me a copy of your book and its great. I have, like you, been a Met fan since I took my first breath…and like you the times and seasons and moments are wrapped around the things of my life like markers, reminding me of where I have been and hinting at where I might be going.

So we start a new season. I still have not made the turn on Citi Field…there is still so much I miss about Shea. I knew every inch of the place…knew exactly where the moments happened. I knew the time of day by how the light cast its shadows at Shea and there was something comforting about it. Citi Field??? not so much yet…but perhaps that will change in time.

All of that is to say…its a new season with all that a new season as a Met fan implies…and its a beautiful thing…so here is to 2010

Great win today, Johan was on the money and although we benefitted from some below par Marlins D,who cares,a win is a win!! All the new Mets made solid contributions and the bullpen got the jobs done with no scares. And from what I could see on SNY, the Hall Of Fame and Museum looks CLASS. It’s a good day to be a MET

Indeed a good day to be a Met and finally feel like we have a home of our own.

Citi Field now appears as it always should have been — the home of the Mets, not a shrine honoring a team that fled the City more than a half century ago or a mall emphasizing crass commercialism(SNY even had Kevin Burkhardt stationed in the stands rather than in front of a restaurant or store plugging the merchandise).

Ownership finally showed a touch of class by remembering Jane Jarvis with a moment of silence.

But other than the great team performance, the highlight of the day was Jeff Franceur only able to throw that beach ball ten feet.

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